Will received a suspended sentence on compassionate grounds. When Charlotte told me the news, I promised myself that I'd say a prayer in the Donghwa Temple when I got home, in thanks for keeping Will outta jail. I had no idea how he'd have survived away from the sound of the ocean, let alone struggle through prison life.
I stopped asking myself where Noah was. It didn't matter. Sofi had arrested Ollie, two Sigma finance minions, Dani Fuentes, Ana Maria Santiago, and Lars Eriksen. Cal was dead. Arturo Torrente, a high-level operative from el Nube, was dead. With this much heat, Noah wouldn't resurface for weeks.
Ruby didn't challenge my dream-time recollection of Noah idly swinging Seven's keys. She put it down on my new witness statement as recall after the fact, and said it was common in witnesses who had undergone trauma. The memory, paltry eye-witness evidence that it was, had resurfaced too late to help Will anyways.
None of the evidence Sofi had amassed was enough to target Noah. Lars Eriksen had vowed to give information to the police, but he'd known too little about Sigma's, and Noah's, activities to be of any real use. Ana Maria Santiago had denied ever meeting Noah in person. Rafa's testimony about his deal with Noah had never arrived. And Will's experience of Noah, though...intense...had been fleeting.
If only I'd not been baked and sweating in Suite 306 while Rafa had been busy planting evidence in the printroom, and Noah had been busy setting the building on fire. Maybe I could have saved Raheem weeks earlier.
I guessed that Noah told Rafa to plant the files on Seven's computers mere moments before the building went up in smoke, ensuring that Rafa would be prime suspect. When Noah had instructed Will to take me as compensation, had he wanted Will in the building as a back-up arson suspect? I figured that nobody would ever know Noah's motives, because nobody would ever find him.
Thankfully Will had arrived at Seven for his midnight booking over half an hour late, or we'd have been in Suite 306 plotting my escape only to be dragged onto the sidewalk by Sigma Security.
Aching for home, and tired of running in ever-decreasing circles around Sigma, I got Nuna to buy me a flight to Seoul, frustration and guilt for Raheem plaguing my waking moments.
I had three days left to say my goodbyes, the first to Jules. When I found her, she was investigating an old gym near the seawall to replace her beloved Pier Studio, which had been reduced by the earthquake to lumps of driftwood circling on the North Pacific Gyre.
Jules looked pale and world-weary; she'd been in pretty good shape in the days immediately after she'd escaped from Lars Eriksen, but the past few weeks seemed to have gotten to her.
"I'm gonna miss you, Zeph." She dragged me into a tight hug while the real estate guy milled around us. "Things have been kinda tough around here."
"I'm sorry I've not been around."
"When can you come say goodbye to my folks?" Jules stalked around the gym, opening closets and pulling blinds. "They're really missing you."
I hadn't seen Gloria and Clive for weeks. I'd just disappeared out of their lives.
"Friday afternoon? I gotta have dinner with Charlotte's family Friday night. Then she's gonna drive me to the airport at like three a.m. Saturday."
"You're staying with Charlotte?" Jules's eyebrows rose. "She didn't tell us."
"She's being extra careful with the whole witness protection thing. I never go anywhere. Charlotte and Guillermo aren't supposed to be my guarantors because they're related to Will."
The real estate dude ushered us out of the gym and left us on the steps in the baking heat. As soon as his suit-clad figure disappeared along the sidewalk, I leaned into Jules to do what I'd come for: to confess.
"I need to tell you. I was the informant for Lars. I told the police to investigate him."
"I know." Jules glanced back with a blank expression, like it wasn't in the slightest bit surprising to her. "Selena told me what happened."
"I'm so sorry."
"Hey, Zeph. It's OK." A pained smile tugged at her lips. "I was mad when I found out. But I'm glad you did it."
"He looked just like...someone I knew. That's why I..."
"Hey, it's OK." Jules curled an arm around me. "I know. Will told us everything."
"Everything?"
What did everything mean? Had he told her that I was an asset? That Will was my fake client? That he used ToothGrind to pick up guys in María? I shrank away from Jules, scanning her face as if it would give up an iota of what Will had told her.
"Everything about what happened to you in the gang. And about what he did to you. All of it."
I sank down onto the steps to the gym, shakes hitting me something crazy, not sure if I was gonna cry or yell.
"Who knows?" I asked, shame crushing me like ton after ton of sand.
Jules dropped down next to me and pulled me close. "Just my parents and me."
It didn't bring me relief that they were the only ones who knew what I'd been.
"We're so sorry that all those things happened to you, Zeph. To you both." Jules's voice shook, like the very thought of what Will and me had had to endure would have ended her. "If we'd known we'd have helped somehow."
"There wasn't anything that you could do," I said. "Is Will OK?"
"Yeah, since Charlotte made him go to therapy." Jules tucked her hands under her armpits, as if suddenly cold in the sweltering afternoon. "We were so scared, Zeph. Your house was empty for three days. Will wasn't picking up his phone. Nor were you. Nor was Charlotte. We were going crazy. My Mom found Will in his bed the following Monday, just..." Jules bit back tears. "He was so sick, Zeph. Not just from the gunshot. They put him in my old bedroom. He told them everything. I can't believe all that stuff happened to you. Or that Will did all that stuff. That he didn't talk to us. He turned to a gang rather than ask us for help."
Jules fell silent for a moment, shaking her head like she was unable to fathom how twisted Will's mind had been to think that he and Mozhgan were totally alone.
"He's working again," she said, brightening at the thought of Will's quiet industry. "I think he's gonna move back home soon."
I smiled at that, glad that Will was safe, cared for.
"Are you gonna...forgive him, Zeph?"
The same thing that Eomma had asked. Looked like everyone thought that Will was beyond reproach.
"Does he want me to?"
What could I forgive Will for anyways? Being a criminal? Lying to me? Not telling me about Noah? Not telling me about all those ToothGrind guys? My stomach clenched and unclenched at the thought of another man touching him, and I scrambled for safer thoughts. No thoughts came to the rescue.
"No. I mean...I don't know. He doesn't talk about you."
That didn't surprise me. Perhaps I plagued Will's dreams just like he did mine. Perhaps we were trying to escape each other.
"Forgiving him is complicated, Jules. He hid so much from me. I never really knew him."
"Nor did I," she whispered.
Jules now knew Will only too well. His crimes, his obsessions, his dumb impossible fantasies were probably burned into her mind forever.
"You'll find someone perfect once you get home."
Jules was the worst person to offer me comfort. She didn't understand what emptiness felt like. The state of knowing that she was missing something, but not knowing what it was, or how to find it. She'd never chased an hour's worth of pleasure in a stranger's arms, only for it to leave her feeling more dead inside than before. She'd never been indifferent to everything, seeking ever more unsatisfying situations which evoked nothing. And then repeat it weekend after weekend, for years.
But Will did know. He'd done it too. How ashamed I'd felt when he'd coaxed me into confessing about how many guys I'd been with, and about how I'd chased Noah. All that time I'd thought that Will was too timid to even sign up to CaliSta, too sensible to mess with sketchy guys like I did.
Until that night on Santa Elena Beach, when Will had confessed that he'd once felt numb too. Dead inside. Back then I hadn't known what he meant, was never supposed to have found out what he meant. The numbness that ToothGrind gave him. That Noah gave him. Is that what he'd sought from me too?
He heard the ocean with you, Zeph.
Jules smacked a kiss to my forehead. "I gotta go. I'm teaching a class at twelve. See you Friday afternoon." She hurried away, leaving me curled up on the steps of the gym.
The beeping of my phone startled me. Examination 12pm ultrasound clinic flashed on the screen.
My heart started to beat like a gong in my ears. I'd typed Will's appointment for his follow-up ultrasound examination into my phone calendar weeks earlier. Will would be arriving at Arenosa Hospital that very moment. What if the fibroma had come back?
He couldn't go alone. But Jules was teaching, and Charlotte was in meetings with the Attorney General all day; neither of them could go with Will. Perhaps Gloria had taken time off classes to go with him. Or Clive.
My heart sank. The most probable scenario was that Will wouldn't want to make a fuss, and hadn't told anyone about the examination. He was almost certainly going alone.
I contemplated running to the hospital, but figured that Will wouldn't want me there, not after everything.
He needs someone, Zeph.
Besides, it wasn't even possible. I had fifteen minutes to run across town, navigate around the small village that was Arenosa Hospital, convince the receptionists at Ultrasound that I needed to be with Will, and finally negotiate the maze of corridors to find Will's examination room.
I ran.
When I arrived puffing at the door of the waiting room, I wasn't allowed in. The receptionist beckoned me to her desk, taking pity on my sweaty-ass state.
"I'm here to accompany Will Graz," I managed to pant in between breaths of dirty-clean hospital air.
"I'm sorry. Only family can accompany patients."
"Oh." Nestled onto a chair, I shut my eyes and tried to calm the fuck down, imagining myself on Santa Elena Beach, breathing with the ocean. But the dirty-clean hospital smell kept infecting me. "Can I just tell Will that I'm waiting outside, so he knows there's...someone?" I asked, switching on a desperate smile.
The nurse watched me with worry. Maybe she thought I was gonna faint, or cry, or vomit. I kinda wanted to do all three. "All right."
Will was sat alone in the little ante-room for ultrasound patients, fingers moving swiftly against his phone screen. I'd run to Arenosa Hospital in a frenzy, not sparing a thought about what I was gonna do when I got to Will, let alone prepare myself for the sight of him.
I'd forgotten how beautiful he was up close.
No longer the sickly apparition I'd seen at his trial, Will looked well. His curls had grown a little more on top, buzz-cut around the sides. Ripped jeans exposing olive-brown knees. Ancient Chuck Taylors. The image of him slotted perfectly inside my heart before my brain even had a chance to rebel.
"Zeph." Will looked up at me, wide eyes blinking like he was seeing a vision. "Why are you...?" Like always, his voice wrapped me in velvet, but his tone was guarded, afraid. "You went to Korea."
"My flight's in three days." I hovered near the door, unsure what to do next.
I had no idea why I'd thought that Will would be comforted by my presence. His white-knuckled hands shook minutely, gripping his phone to his chest like a tiny shield.
"The appointment reminder came up on my calendar..." I thrust my phone screen toward him, as if it was the culprit. When I'd typed the appointment into my phone after Will's surgery, I'd never expected to still be in California for it. Or for things to have become so fucked-up between us.
Will held up his phone too. "Charlotte's with me. She's texting me." Of course he'd have been texting Charlotte, and Gloria, and whoever else.
"I'm...I'm not allowed in the clinic anyways," I stammered. "Just came in to say that I'm waiting outside. If you..."
I threw myself back through the door of the waiting room and sank onto my little chair near the reception desk.
What the fuck had possessed me to come? Had I expected Will to be overjoyed to see me, groveling and thankful for the company? Had I wanted to congratulate myself on being such a fucking awesome guy that I'd put aside my disappointment in Will to sit with him through an examination that he didn't even want me at?
I wouldn't have blamed Will if he'd found an exit that bypassed the waiting room to avoid me. But, despite Will telling me in not so many words to stay the fuck away, someone needed to be there for him if the test results were bad. It wasn't enough for Charlotte to comfort him by text with news like that.
In the end, the decision whether or not to leave Will in peace was made for me. Will emerged from the ante-room, having evidently decided not to jump outta the ultrasound clinic's window to avoid me. He handed a packet of papers to the receptionist, and turned to go, eyebrows cutting a vee into his forehead. Had the tests gone OK?
I stood up from the chair. Beautiful eyes turned to me. But they turned away before I could make out what Will was feeling. "How...how did it go?"
"Lab's gonna take up to two hours to analyze the pictures."
"Oh." Then, a heartbeat later, "I'll wait with you."
"They're gonna call me."
"I'll wait with you."
Will dragged a hand down his beard. "I'm going home to wait, Zeph."
I blundered on, ignoring the pathetic desperation in my voice. "Can I wait with you?"
In my heart I knew it wasn't just for Will's sake. Furious with him, confused about us, but after so many weeks away from him I suddenly didn't wanna say goodbye.
Nanoseconds before he declined right to my face, the words managed to force their way out. "I hope it's a good result. Take care of yourself."
I turned on my heels and fled down the dirty-clean corridor.
"Zephyr." Swift footsteps, and the rumble of Will's voice echoed around the corridor from behind me. "Let's go wait."
He led me silently to a parking lot on the northern side of the hospital, and played a sax quartet album on full blast in the grandma-mobile so that we wouldn't have to talk en route to ninety-nine Seapoint Avenue.
White-and-blue beams, creaking floorboards, the tinkle of zephyr-blown seashells hanging on the porch. The warm familiar smell of the place had me aching.
I peered into my little bedroom to find it full of Mozhgan's canvases and easels, Persian literature and poetry books stacked almost to the ceiling. An old blue sweater was folded on the bed, the one that Mozhgan had worn when I'd met her in Orchard Park. Perhaps it had been a favorite of hers.
The rest of the house was impeccably clean and tidy. I was about to comment on it to Will, when I remembered that he'd been living with Gloria and Clive for weeks.
Will sat stiffly on the sofa, swiping out text after text on his phone, probably telling Charlotte that I'd been a fucking idiot and stalked him to the hospital. I took the sofa opposite, missing Will's scent after our forced proximity in the grandma-mobile.
Aborted attempts to pick a light-hearted topic of conversation left me flapping my jaw open and shut.
"You hungry?" I finally asked, wishing I could think of any question but that. "Go ahead and eat your lunch or whatever. I'm fine right here."
"I'm not hungry. You need to eat?" He rose from the sofa. "Not much food in the house. Been staying with Gloria since..."
"No, thanks." I motioned him to sit back down. "Charlotte told me you're staying next door."
Will's eyebrows shifted. "You speak to her often?"
"Yeah, of course. Every night when she gets back from..." I'd forgotten that Will didn't know. "Guillermo's my visa guarantor."
Will cast sad eyes down into his lap, perhaps jealous that I saw the girls every day while they were kept away from him.
Still no safe topics of conversation came to mind. "Your...injury OK?"
"Yeah, fine," he muttered, his hands gripping his phone tightly again, like it was a talisman to protect him from me. "You OK?"
"Yeah. Good. Flight's in three days."
"Your family must be buzzing." A brief smile lit his features, as if in remembrance of his impromptu Korean lessons with Eomma.
"Yeah. My Mom can't hardly wait. I'm staying with Sora and Kang-min for a few weeks. Then I'm gonna get military service over with." I didn't know why I was scrambling to fill the silence with inane chatter. Hours of comfortable quiet had slipped by so easily when we'd lived in the same house. "How's work?"
"Good. Got two contracts at the moment. Hoping to land a big one this summer." Then, under his breath, "Owe Gloria money."
"You didn't get your trust...from your Dad?"
"No. The...criminal record...means I violated the terms. The money's probably gone to Lyons." He sounded unconcerned about the inheritance, like he'd never thought it existed anyways.
"It was all his money, you know. Charlotte found out when he died. It wasn't ever Lyons money. He saved it for you. Everything else he earned went straight to the Lyons Estate. Part of some kinda...marriage contract."
He shrugged, indifferent. "It doesn't matter now." Phantom inheritance from a phantom father. "Your friends OK?"
After months of hiding my conversations with Miles and Luke, the question caught me unawares. No, my friends weren't OK.
"Raheem's still missing," I murmured, too guilt-ridden to say more.
Perhaps Will was my last hope for information about Raheem.
I took a shot. "Did Noah ever tell you about Sigma work he was involved with?"
Will sat up, eyes wide. "Noah's got Raheem?"
"Yeah. But there's not enough probable cause to arrest him. Police can't find him anyways."
"He didn't talk about any projects." Will grimaced in thought, like he was sifting through hours of conversations that he'd hoped never to recall. "Except one. At La Rosa he wouldn't stop talking about the ship's refurbishment into a casino. He was proud of it. Said that it's owned by a company with mutual interests."
It was an interesting snippet of Noah's work, but not useful. Just a passing observation about an old project. It had been worth a shot.
"Guess he was advertising the place to me. Probably wanted me to lose all my money playing cards that night," Will said, ill-fitting bitterness in his voice.
The talk of Will and Noah together had my guts rolling. But there were no conversations between me and Will that wouldn't hurt. May as well keep talking.
"Why didn't you tell me that you wanted to get me outta Seven?"
Will took a slow breath, then another, as if trying to breathe with the ocean.
"You let me think you were a client."
"I did tell you," he whispered. "You didn't believe me."
"Why did you arrive at Seven half an hour late? Your booking was midnight."
Will dragged a palm down his beard, breaths slow and steady, like how Meena had taught us. "I was sat in the car, too scared to move. I like to tell myself it was the tramadol for my gunshot wound making me paranoid. But it probably wasn't. Didn't wanna go into Seven. Didn't wanna see anyone from Sigma again. Took me twenty minutes to get into shape to...come find you."
I wished I could take back all the shit I'd said to him about being a coward. He'd been so fucking brave that night.
"Zephyr." Will peeked up at me. "Why didn't you change your name back? Noah gave you that name; why keep it?"
I'd asked myself that question a hundred times since busting outta Sigma. Well, Jun-su had asked me. "I don't know. I hate that he did that. But, I guess I like being Zephyr. I can't explain."
There it was. A beautiful little Will-smile. A smile of regret. If I'd changed my name back to Jun-su the night we'd met, Will would never have hopelessly chased Mozhgan's fantasies about zephyrs and oceans. Aching to change the subject, my heart stumbled toward his.
"Your hair looks good."
Will ran his fingers through the mass of short curls on top of his head in reply, nervous at the compliment.
"Looked kinda...shocking...at the trial."
His head snapped up to face me, eyes wide. "You were at the trial?"
I could almost feel the waves of shame radiating out of him, driving his mind back to the courtroom, making him relive it all.
"Charlotte was...was stressing. She...she begged me to go with her." I stammered out. "And I thought it might help find Raheem."
Will hunched over on the sofa, head in hands. "You were supposed to be in Korea all this time."
"I was with Charlotte," I whispered.
He let out a long, tired exhale, rubbing at the cropped hair at his temple where soft curls had once been.
"Why did you shave your hair off?"
"Don't know. Didn't want it anymore." Will leaned back against the sofa, eyes closed, like his mind was trying to find the ocean's heartbeat under my drone and clatter. "I wasn't well. But I'm better now. Moving on."
"Has your therapist got you taking Tryptex?"
Eyes still closed, he let out a tiny "Yeah," his voice laced with shame.
Perhaps Tryptex and therapy had been a condition of his probation. He'd always been scared of taking pills in case it affected how he took care of Mozhgan. Now that she was gone, was it Tryptex that got him out outta bed every morning?
"Do you talk to your therapist about me?"
"I'm not supposed to discuss my sessions with anyone."
Did his therapist know what I was? What Cal had made me do? I didn't care; she'd probably psychoanalyze the shit out of everything regardless.
"Tell her whatever you like."
"I tell her everything. She's helping me." He said it under his breath, resolutely, like he was trying to convince himself. "Helping me put...bad experiences...behind me."
"So I'm a bad experience to put behind you?"
"No," he groaned. "She didn't mean it like that."
I was the one who'd been wronged. I was the one who'd been lied to. And there was Will, talking about getting better, like I was the fibroma that had been cut out of him. Why was I stuck dreaming about him, missing him, while he put bad experiences behind him and moved on?
"I get it. It's all my fault that you're like this."
"Like what?" Will bristled, eyebrows set hard in anger. It was horrible to see.
That was a shitty thing to say, Zeph.
I was supposed to be comforting Will, offering him strength while he waited to find out if another fibroma was growing inside his body. Since I'd arrived, all I'd done was hound him.
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you here, Zeph?" The hard lines of rage had left Will's face. He looked tired.
"Your examination," I murmured.
"You invited yourself to my examination."
"I thought you'd need...a friend with you."
"You know we can't be friends now, Zeph."
He didn't say it unkindly. But, his tone showed how fucking obvious it was to everyone except me that we couldn't magically become best buddies for the two hours it took to analyze ultrasound images of his insides.
The tinkle of Will's phone pulled me back from the cliff-edge I was teetering over. The hospital.
He picked up the call, his entire body completely still except for his hand, which shook uncontrollably at his ear.
Please Santa Maria, keep him safe for me.
The phonecall was so long, the expression on Will's face frozen as he listened on. Had they not completed the tests after all?
"What did they say?" My voice was a strung-out croak, like it could only emerge from my mouth in broken pieces.
I looked down at my hands; they were shaking just like Will's.
Will hung up and leaned back against the sofa, statue-still, tears streaming down his face. Was it bad news?
He closed his eyes, sending huge tears rolling. "All clear," he breathed, a glorious exhale of pure relief.
He was gonna be OK.
My heart-strings wrenched, and suddenly I was reaching for him, like his tears were reeling me into his warmth. In fractions of seconds I'd crossed the room and had taken him into my arms. He was gonna be OK.
Somehow I found myself cradling his face, brushing away tears. Gazing into startled almond-shaped eyes. Irises parting into golden rivulets that streamed into black. Sea-salt warmth surrounding me.
He was so beautiful.
My fingertips skittered along his jaw, and before I knew it I was brushing my lips on his, the lightest of touches.
And then, I was kissing air.
Will had grabbed my shoulders, pushed me away, and was holding me there. I struggled, but he was stronger than me, releasing me when I went limp. He let me fall with a thud onto the sofa.
"We can't do this, Zeph." He backed away toward the sunroom doors.
"I'm sorry." I sat up, following him along the sofa, unsure how it had all happened. "I'm so sorry."
I'd been happy that his test results were all clear, and somehow it had turned into...I traced my fingers along my lips where they'd met his. His warmth still lingered on them, and on my shoulders where he'd held me. His scent still clung to my skin.
This was the last time I'd ever see Will Graz. We couldn't part on bad terms. Neither of us could want that.
Unless...
"Are you horny? We could..." I edged along the sofa until I was on my knees, fingers trailing down his thigh until they met skin. "It could be a fun goodbye."
Will jerked away from me. His back hit the sunroom doors with a clatter.
"Get up, Zeph." He
dragged a palm across tired eyes. He didn't sound disgusted with me. Just exhausted with all my shit. Like he'd moved on. "Sex is a distraction that exacerbates the problem."
I backed away from him, so fucking appalled with myself that I wanted to tear out my hair.
"Is that what your therapist told you? That I was a distraction? Like how the guys on ToothGrind were distractions? Did you tell her that I used to fuck around too? That we were each other's distractions?"
"You'd better go, Zeph."
"I'm sorry," I groveled, dangerously close to tears. "I'm sorry."
Why had I come? It certainly hadn't been to take care of Will, because I'd totally fucked that up. Was this all just a pitiful attempt to throw myself at him, as usual?
I was such a pathetic asshole.
Will slid frustrated fingers through the neat curls on his crown. "You need a ride back to Arenosa?"
So, he was still willing to get into a car with me after everything.
"No." I lunged toward the sunroom doors and fumbled with the doorknob. "I'll walk."
Will's voice rumbled on behind me like silk, still wrapping me up in his warmth even after what I'd done.
"You did it, Zeph. You made it. You're going home." Still kind to me, after everything. "Take care of yourself."
I wrestled the sunroom doors open and charged toward the back porch. But something caught my eye. The sight of it made me stop dead in my tracks, the porch doors forgotten as my vision filled with its glory.
Our piano.
I hadn't heard its sweet strings for weeks. So ashamed of myself, so desperate to get away, but my eyes wouldn't leave the sandy brown knots on the piano's veneer. Before I knew it, I'd begun to trace my fingers along the blossom on the fallboard, as I had hundreds of times before.
"I'll find a good buyer for it," Will said, his voice brimming with sadness.
Of course, Will was selling the piano.
My fingers followed the loops and curls of white blossom. "Can't you keep it for when Sabrina visits?"
"It's taking up too much space." His voice echoed the weakness of the excuse.
But what other outcome was there? I couldn't possibly expect Will to keep a half-ton reminder of what had happened. Nobody would.
"Did your therapist tell you to sell it?"
Will's eyes widened, caught in the act. He looked away, a silent confession. Another bad experience to move on from.
The piano was just like I'd left it that Friday night four weeks earlier, when Charlotte and me had dashed to Maria, not knowing if Will would be dead or alive when we got there. All-too-familiar crumpled sheets of staff paper lay on the music stand: the études I'd written for Will, and had played to him on our last night together. Four parts of an unfinished sonata; we hadn't been together long enough for the coda to flow out of him.
"Take your music, Zeph." Will held the creased stack of paper out to me. "You wrote it."
I'd never take the sonata. I'd merely written down what had come from inside Will. It would always be his. I put the papers back onto the music stand where they belonged.
Will reached past me and lifted the fallboard, like the sight of the keys might entice me. "Go ahead. Play something."
"I should go."
A little Will-smile, to make me brave. Like he just knew how badly I'd wanted to play for weeks. "Just play."
I gazed up at him, searching his face. "What do you want me to-"
"No, Zeph. Don't play for me. Just play whatever you want."
There was only one thing I wanted to play. The dog-eared staff paper sat ready on the music stand, crumpled from where I'd fallen asleep on it in Will's bed weeks before.
The first movement of his sonata, light, airy in C major. The second, a tinkling melody, slow and beating between keys, like waves on the beach. The third smearing keys into a kaleidoscope of colors. And the fourth, pulsing like the pitch of the North Pacific itself. All of them were from inside Will. All of them were him.
Only when I'd made it to the final bar of the piece did I remember Will's connection to music. What secrets had he just heard me play?
The waveforms on the strings decayed. I dried my tears on the back of my hand and lurched toward the porch doors, throwing them open onto the sweltering beach.
"Take care, Will."
I ran.